Welcome to Beth Roach Photography. Beth is a freelance portrait photographer based in the South West of England.
Adventures around Swindon, words you never hear together, in the rain hardly sounds like a scenic location for a photo shoot. Collaborations called again with Bex and Hannah making for a colourful photoshoot, even in grey Swindon. Mermaid inspired make-up and dilapidated old trolley make for such great shoot subjects, with the help of gorgeous Hannah of course.
Stormy winds and free reign around a farm was the setting of my latest shoot with Andrew and Hannah. It was hard to not get too excited about all the pretty spots and cows to assist a Country living style meets stereotypical British weather
As we say goodbye to gloomy January and get excited about Spring, I thought I would round up the first month with my 52-week project for the first four weeks. As I mentioned in my new year post, within my photography group we decided to attempt the lengthy 52-week project, with themes created by our photography group leader, you would need to be committed and inspired – that’s why I am thankful we have each other!
An image I have already featured in my new year post. My first self-portrait in over 3 years and I felt amazing. Channelling my inner Brandon Woelfel I let myself loose with the fairy lights and a timer.
I spoke a lot in 2017 about by jump back to photography and how you need to brush yourself off so I kept myself out of this one. I met this woman in my photography course back last year. She runs an emporium at a lock up in Shoreditch, it’s been passed down through three generations, it even survived through the blitz! Her grandfather, portrayed in local street art, watches on as his emporium still goes strong.
Don’t Wispa, Shout! It’s January, some of us have given up on our diet and others are in denial, myself included given my recent Mini Egg Binge, so it’s only right to base week 3 on a little indulgence. I had a shot in mind and I asked my stepdad to bring home one Wispa bar, 2 multi-packs and a massive food baby later and my week 3 submission was born.
This was a tricky one for me and my entry may seem a little surface level, but photography is a doorway to my soul. This shot was taken this weekend with Bex and Hannah, it’s amazing what you can do on a drizzly day.
What were your new year’s resolutions and have you stuck to them?
Every time I go to my partner’s parent’s there’s a piece of paper on their fridge that says ‘should I work for free’? They are both Musicians in their own right, they make money from their talent and this always gets me thinking about this stigma in the creative industry.
Whether you’re a blogger, photographer or musician you would have been met with a request to work for free like “you can bring your camera along”, “It’s great experience”, “We don’t have the money but…” or “I can credit you”, the list is endless. Remarks like this are why it’s becoming increasingly difficult to create an art that people value. It begins to doubt your worth. For a creative, there is so much time and work that goes into the final product, that not many people realise, the practising, the research, the editing.
I’m not saying you should never work for free. There is so much tension around not being paid, many believe it belittles your skill, puts others out of business and creates excuses for sub-standard work. Others believe that it is the only way to get exposure and experience in the industry.
For me this is a grey area, I have worked for free a very long time ago, I learned a lot and gained a lot of experience, it also brought me repeat work and a loyalty. However, as a photographer you are constantly met with “that doesn’t fit our budget” or “it’s just clicking a camera” and this is just degrading, it questions their value.
With a photoshoot, you are paying for the photographers time, their skills and their product. You don’t question a Vintage Wine’s price, you appreciate the time it has matured and then the final product.
It’s important to establish the benefits to you. Be respectful of the request, but respect yourself too. How would this affect you? Would it bring you more business in the long run or allow you to progress further in an area? Also, respect someones choice to work for free, it’s their time, their skill.
Have respect for creatives, they don’t work 9-5, they’re brand/skill is their life. If you’re friends with a creative, don’t expect their services for free, treat it as a surprise if they were to offer. At the end of the day, you are providing the services, you have to weigh up the options that work for you.
How do you feel about working for free?
Whether you’re a macro photographer or Instagram addict, the words macro photography are everywhere. I have to start this post by saying macro photography is more than pretty pictures of flowers. Being guilty of thinking this, macro photography never appealed to me, the idea of having to stage my shot and having nothing to bounce off is my idea of hell, it’s why portraiture is my forte. However, at our all-female photographer club, we decided to give it a go!
I want to continue with an apology for this late post, I have had flu so posting on Tuesday wasn’t possible. Teresa hosted our workshop – a fine art photographer based in Wiltshire, who specialises in extreme macro photography. Using old extension tubes and my nifty fifty (50mm lens) we got to work.
With close up photography, the composition is key which Teresa helped us with using a mixture of beads, feathers and plants as well as a reflective background and an old kitchen tile. With that our set up was made. Manual focus was essential and scary, I mean you never use manual focus when photographing people. But, the experience was exciting, I felt it made you appreciate the art further.
Getting up close and personally allowed me to see this created world from a new perspective. A giant bokeh mixed with reflective and distracting backgrounds also allowed you to play with your subject even more.
What new thing do you want to try in 2018?
In the spirit of the new year, new me and all that, I wanted to compile my goals and aspirations for 2018. 2017 was such a great year for me with my photography. I fell in love with my camera again, joined my first female photography group, organised my first editorial shoot at a launderette and helped Life of Lilly gain body confidence with my photos. What a year!
My Photography goals for 2018:
My Personal goals for 2018:
What are your goals for 2018 and beyond?
The featured image is my first photo of 2018 and self-portrait in three years. Happy New Year!
My favourite laundry day image has received a highly commended award. This is a shoot that’s meant so much to me, every time I see the photos it reminds me how much fun it was to shoot and edit, it brings a smile to my face every time! Here’s to laundry day – the only thing involving washing to make me smile!
I ordered business cards! Ok, that’s quite a boring intro and this is probably a boring post but, all the hard work over the last six months is starting to pay off so I can’t help but shout!
With the help of a freelance designer and my own imagery, my cards look fabulous, it’s so nice to see the images actually printed, as most of my photography is presented digitally currently.
So I used moo.com – after several recommendations from people. Their website is easy to use, you have fun designs to pick from and their prices are very reasonable. You don’t even need to pay extra for glossy paper, which for a photographer is an important way to make your image pop! If like me you find your favourite image hard to pick or you dabble in a few fields of photography then moo offer up to 50 design changes for free, so I chose 4 images for the back to cater for clients!
And as a nice touch when your box arrives you receive two blue cards to pass on or keep. Mine said “you seem really fun” and “you have cool hair” and is it bad that I hope they hopped onto my website and actually thought that?
Also, enjoy my very late Halloween flatlay!
A BMW garage is probably the last place I would expect a photography exhibition, and yet a Friday in October I found myself scouring a showroom floor full of tour imagery by Denis O’Regan of the band Queen. I have been brought up surrounded by Queen music, thanks to my parent’s obsession with the band, and enjoy a lot of their music so I went into this with an open mind (and mother in tow).
This exhibition, presented by Off Beat Lounge in association with Dick Lovett, displayed tour imagery from Queen’s golden years, the mid 70’s to their last ever tour with the original line-up in 1986. All by Denis O’Regan who was Queen’s favourite live photographer at the peak of their career.
Denis O’Regan is a fine art photographer who I actually got to meet on the day, which if you read my photography show blog post, you know I don’t do well at. Even my mother had to say I was a photographer. A lovely man who took the time to answer everyone’s questions, whether they were long or short.
His favourite image, after he struggled to pick, is of Freddie Mercury in front of a crowd at Wembley. An iconic image which just highlighted Freddie’s and the rest of the band’s ability to captivate an audience.
You can see in the exhibition how photography at the time was changing, with the introduction of colour film you see this come through in the imagery as time went on, which in my opinion was made for the Queen Magic Tour.
However, in this world of smartphones and selfies its hard to believe that colour photography at the time was seen as a fad, a phase that would never take off and no photographer would be taken seriously using it. But, I love that Denis ignored these opinions because if it was possible colour catches the euphoric atmosphere even more. Saying this to him, he complimented my ‘professional’ opinion – that makes me a happy lady!
If you have the option to visit this exhibition in it’s last few shows I would highly recommend, the music is so loud it makes you fall in love with the songs all over again and the imagery is just fantastic, it’s time to appreciate film again people! All this is associated with the mercury phoenix trust too, so all for a great cause.
Do you ever just get the feeling you want to roam around a launderette, on a Saturday, while customers wash their duvets? I have for the last year as I drive past one on my Friday journey home from work. A launderette, I thought apart from Eastenders, who even uses one now?
I contacted the owner of laundramagic, Helena, which was a big deal for me because this was my first official location pitch. This is where you say “what are you scared of? You do this for a living”, well actually a lot of my work was very studio based at the beginning or locations that are convenient to me. The pitch for the launderette was completely new to me, and I hate to say it, social media helped me combat that, I met with Helena through facebook and arranged a meet-up. Hindsight will tell me to create great art you need to get out of your comfort zone. Give up your preconceptions of people and attitudes because people want to be a part of something awesome, and that’s what this was. If only I was this sane.
It’s at this point where I highly recommend building a Pinterest board showing your ideas. No one tends to understand them until they see the finished result, in this case it’s a load of washing machines in a photo, how is that aesthetically pleasing?
That’s how!
I approached a friend of mine, Bex Sweeney, a makeup artist in Swindon and got a plan together. Filled with wacky and wonderful ideas that then stemmed to, why don’t we just have fun with washing machines as a theme? Original huh?
Our model Beats returned to work with us, who I originally shot in the image below, how skills change! And we went cameras in tow to the launderette.
By far the most exciting photoshoot I’ve experienced, customers trailed in throughout the day with socks and pants from the previous week, I met what felt like the entire family of Helena and was made to feel a part of it and the tumble dryers were too hot so were a shutter away from melting the makeup off! Helena was taking photos of the shoot to tell her daughter what was going on who didn’t believe this was happening in her mum’s launderette. I love telling people my ideas because they look at me like I’m insane and I get to prove to them that I am but I also take great photos!
To use the launderette, as payment, we made a donation to Mind, a mental health charity which I would recommend looking into, they do great work.
Beth Roach Photography